Previous WHO strategy to eliminate tuberculosis from failure?

Tuberculosis cases declined slightly, but still more than 10 million new infections

Tuberculosis should be eliminated worldwide by 2035, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) plan. The 2017 World Tuberculosis Report, which has just been published, highlights the achievements that have already been made in this direction and where the problems are in the fight against tuberculosis. Every year more than 10 million people still suffer from the infectious disease and more than 1.6 million die as a result of tuberculosis.

By 2030, tuberculosis deaths are expected to fall by 90 percent and new infections to fall by 80 percent. But "overall, the recent picture shows a still high burden of disease and advances that are not fast enough to reach the goals or close the coverage gaps," the WHO warns. If efforts are not significantly intensified, the fight against tuberculosis threatens to fail.

The number of tuberculosis infections is decreasing slightly, but the WHO strategy to eliminate the infectious disease threatens to fail. (Image: Zerbor / fotolia.com)

Tuberculosis is the deadliest infectious disease

Furthermore, tuberculosis ranks 9th in the world for the cause of death and remains the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. According to the WHO, in 2016, there were an estimated 1.3 million TB deaths among HIV-negative people (compared to 1.7 million in 2000) and another 374,000 deaths among HIV-positive people. In total, an estimated 10.4 million people were diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2016, with 90 percent being adults.

Gaps in diagnosis and therapy

According to the WHO, most TB deaths could be prevented by early diagnosis and appropriate treatment. "Millions of people are diagnosed every year and successfully treated for tuberculosis, which avoids millions of deaths (53 million in the period 2000-2016)," WHO reports. The success rate for the treatments is about 83 percent, but there are still major gaps in detection and access to therapy.

Resistant pathogens a significant problem

Furthermore, according to the WHO, drug-resistant tuberculosis is a growing threat. Here the report shows a slight increase in the reported case numbers. Treatment success rates are much lower for these conditions, reaching only 54 percent. According to the WHO, around 600,000 new infections with drug-resistant tuberculosis were estimated in 2016.

More than half of the infections in five countries

In regional terms, 56 percent of all tuberculosis infections occurred in five countries worldwide: India, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and Pakistan. At the same time, more than 50 percent of infections with drug-resistant pathogens were found here. While the number of new cases decreases on average by around two percent per year, by 2020 it would need to be improved to four to five percent per year to achieve the first milestones in the strategy, according to the WHO communication.

Insufficient progress in the fight against tuberculosis

"How can it be that the deadliest infectious disease in the world is curable, but in the past year almost 1.7 million people have died of it", so the critical question of the aid organization "Doctors Without Borders" to the data of the WHO report. In addition, in four out of five people with resistant tuberculosis, the disease is not diagnosed and only half of those affected are cured. Although two newer drugs for the treatment of resistant tuberculosis have been available for five years and could help. However, fewer than five percent of people who need these drugs actually receive them, the charity says. In particular, the countries with many TB patients have to face the challenge and significantly improve access to diagnosis and treatment, according to Doctors Without Borders. This also applies to new forms of treatment for resistant tuberculosis. (Fp)